George Roof is a resident of Magnolia.
The Daily State News shared a letter from Joseph Zingaro concerning the current secretary of war (“‘Hypocrite’ Hegseth not deserving of position”).
First, I take umbrage in the dredging up of a cherry-picked comment that an individual supposedly made over a decade previous. Second is the pretext that those comments, even if true, were compared to the seditious comments of a sitting U.S. senator in a video directed at junior enlisted and commissioned officers.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice actually takes precedence over the U.S. Constitution and is quite explicit in the words that Hegseth spoke at the time. His comments simply reminded those who had already made questionable decisions about an actual event that had taken place and warned them that such activity could result in punitive actions.
Conversely, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a retired Naval officer, had participated in a video specifically targeting impressionable military people. He encouraged these members to make individual decisions and to disregard the chain of command they are bound to. He described responsibilities and actions by implying, but never specifically defining, exactly what orders had been given that were “illegal.” The entire charade was simply a dog whistle, intended to encourage dissention and the questioning of orders given by those appointed over them.
Many of us took great pride in our service and felt that our oaths of enlistment and commissioning were lifelong, with no expiration date. Many of us served under irresponsible secretaries, like Robert McNamara, who got thousands of names put on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. Others served under the useless Gen. Mark Milley, who apologized for accompanying the president of the U.S. while wearing a uniform, or retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, who went AWOL for over 10 days without notifying anyone of his absence.
Personally, I find that secretary of war Pete Hegseth is the most qualified person with a perspective of the military corps that has served in the eight decades of my life. He’s cleared the Pentagon of the chaff and flag officers, whose biggest concerns were which big military contract holder they would be hired by when they retired. He set standards that had been abandoned for the last 50 years and established an effective military force, which is what real warriors pray for. In conflict, there cannot be any gray areas, and this secretary’s understanding of that concept is nonpareil.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
